Paddling through the ponds, polling and tracking through the rapids or portaging around them up the little river on which we were encamped the night before, brought us to Otter Lake, which was considerably larger than Lake Minisinaqua, but not so large as Nipishish. The main body was not over a mile and a half in width, but it had a number of bays and closely connected tributary lakes. Its eastern end, which we did not explore, penetrated low spruce and balsam-covered hills. To the north and northeast were rugged, rock-tipped hills, rising to an elevation of some seven hundred feet above the lake. The country at their base was covered with a green forest of small fir, spruce and birch, and near the water, in marshy places, as is the case nearly everywhere in Labrador, tamarack, but the hills themselves had been fire swept, and were gray with weather-worn, dead trees. On the summits, and for two hundred feet below, bare basaltic rock indicated that at this elevation they had never sustained any growth, save a few straggling bushes. On some of these hills there still remained patches of snow of the previous winter.
We paddled eastward along the northern shore of the lake. Once we saw a caribou swimming far ahead of us, but he discovered our approach and took to the timber before we were within shooting distance of him. A flock of sawbill ducks avoided us. No sign of Indians was seen, and four miles up the lake we stopped upon a narrow, sandy point that jutted out into the water for a distance of a quarter mile, to pitch camp and scout for the trail. All along the point and leading back into the bush, were fresh caribou tracks, where the animals came out to get the benefit of the lake breezes and avoid the flies, which torment them terribly. Natives in the North have told me of caribou having been worried to death by the insects, and it is not improbable. The “bulldogs” or “stouts,” as they are sometimes called, which are as big as bumblebees, are very vicious, and follow the poor caribou in swarms. The next morning a caribou wandered down to within a hundred and fifty yards of camp, and Pete and Stanton both fired at it, but missed, and it got away unscathed.
After breakfast, with Pete and Easton, I climbed one of the higher hills for a view of the surrounding country. Near the foot of the hill, and in the depth of the spruce woods, we passed a lone Indian grave, which we judged from its size to be that of a child. It was inclosed by a rough fence, which had withstood the pressure of the heavy snows of many winters and a broken cross lay on it. From the summit of the hill we could see a string of lakes extending in a general northwesterly direction until they were lost in other hills above, and also numerous lakes to the south, southwest, east and northeast. We could count from one point nearly fifty of these lakes, large and small. To the north and northwest the country was rougher and more diversified, and the hills much higher than any we had as yet passed through.
Down by our camp it had been excessively warm, but here on the hilltop a cold wind was blowing that made us shiver. We found a few scattered dry sticks, and built a fire under the lee of a high bowlder, where we cooked for luncheon some pea-meal porridge with water that Pete, with foresight, had brought with him from a brook that we passed half way down the hillside. We then continued our scouting tour several miles inland, climbing two other high hills, from one of which an excellent view was had of the string of lakes penetrating the northwestern hills. Everywhere so far as our vision extended the valleys were comparatively well wooded, but the treeless, rock-bound hills rose grimly above the timber line.
When we returned to camp we were still unsettled as to where the trail left the lake, but there was one promising bay that had not been explored, and Richards and Easton volunteered to take a canoe and search this bay. They were supplied with tarpaulin, blankets, an ax and one day’s rations, and started immediately.
I felt some anxiety as to our slow progress. August was almost upon us and we had not yet reached Seal Lake. Here, as at other places, we had experienced much delay in finding the trail, and we did not know what difficulties in that direction lay before us. I had planned to reach the George River by early September, and the question as to whether we could do it or not was giving me much concern.
Pete and Stanton had been in bed and asleep for an hour, but I was still awake, turning over in my mind the situation, and planning to-morrow’s campaign, when at ten o’clock I heard the soft dip of paddles, and a few moments later Richards and Easton appeared out of the night mist that hung over the lake, with the good news that they had found the trail leading northward from the bay.